Federal lawsuit alleges UCLA medical school uses a race-based admissions process

A federal class-action lawsuit accuses UCLA’s medical school and various university officials of using race as a factor in admissions, despite a state law and Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in California’s Central District federal court, was brought by the activist group Do No Harm, founded in 2022 to fight affirmative action in medicine; Students for Fair Admissions, the nonprofit that won its suit at the Supreme Court against Harvard’s affirmative action program; and Kelly Mahoney, a college graduate who was rejected from UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.

“Do No Harm is fighting for all the students who have been racially discriminated against by UCLA under the guise of political progress,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm, said in a news release. “All medical schools must abide by the law of the land and prioritize merit, not immutable characteristics, in admissions.”

According to the lawsuit, Do No Harm has at least one member who applied to Geffen, was rejected and “is able and ready to reapply if a court orders Defendants to stop discriminating and to undo the effects of its past discrimination.” Students for Fair Admissions has at least one member who will apply to the medical school.

Read more in the Los Angeles Times.